Monday, May 2, 2011

High concentration of radioactive materials with very short half-life, iodine-133 (half-life 21 hours) and xenon-133 (half-life 5.2475 days), was detected in the cooling water inside the Reactor Pressure Vessel (RPV) of the Reactor 2 at Tsuruga Nuclear Power Plant run by Japan Atomic Power Company (JAPC).

The amount of iodine-133 doubled from a week ago, and the amount of xenon-133 was 750 times as much as a week ago.

JAPC suspects there are minute holes in the cladding, through which the radioactive materials are leaking.

Tsuruga Nuclear Power Plant is part of what is dubbed as "Nuke Power Ginza" in Fukui Prefecture. There are 5 nuclear power plants in the region with total 14 reactors.

"The Reactor No.2 at Tsuruga Nuclear Power Plant (PWR, 1,160,000 kilowatt) was tested for iodine and noble gas during the regular operation on May 2, 2011 in the cooling water that circulates around the fuel rod clusters; xenon-133 and iodine-133 were found to be exceeding the previous test result of April 26 as follows:

"Based on this result, we have determined that there is a possibility of a leak of radioactive materials from the fuel rod clusters, and we have decided to monitor the radiation level of the cooling water [by monitoring it every day, instead of once a week - the footnote No. 2 in the original document].

"Further, in order to identify the leaking fuel rods, we may shut down the reactor.

"There is no leak of radiation in the environment as the result of this event."

About my coverage of Japan Earthquake of March 11

I am Japanese, and I not only read Japanese news sources for information on earthquake and the Fukushima Nuke Plant but also watch press conferences via the Internet when I can and summarize my findings, adding my observations.

About This Site

Well, this was, until March 11, 2011. Now it is taken over by the events in Japan, first earthquake and tsunami but quickly by the nuke reactor accident. It continues to be a one-person (me) blog, and I haven't even managed to update the sidebars after 5 months... Thanks for coming, spread the word.------------------This is an aggregator site of blogs coming out of SKF (double-short financials ETF) message board at Yahoo.

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